THE 99% SCORE ONE FOR THE WORKING AMERICANS

The beloved chief executive of the New England grocery chain Market Basket, Arthur T. Demoulas, has been reinstated in what experts are calling a testament to the power of passionate employees.

“You have demonstrated to the world that it is a person’s moral obligation and social responsibility to protect a culture which provides an honorable and a dignified place in which to work,” Demoulas said at a rally Thursday where employees whooped and hollered as passing cars honked to show support.
"I feel like I won the lottery," Market Basket truck driver Buddy Wemmers told The Boston Globe.

"I'm thrilled, this is epic," said Tom Trainor, a district supervisor, told the Boston Herald.


Gary Sessa, a front end manager at the chain's Tewksbury store, told WFXT-TV that company bakers came in at midnight after hearing the news and started baking cakes that say "Welcome back Artie T: Market Basket Strong."

 The Story Of Grocery Chain Market Basket Ended With A Stunning Victory For The Workers

5 YEAR OLD SUPPORTS GUN CONTROL

A kindergartner bringing a loaded gun to school is one thing, but the explanation he gave to authorities makes the case more unusual: He says he found it at home and wanted to make sure his 3-year-old brother didn't hurt himself, reports KDKA of Pittsburgh. "It's a very unique situation," says the police chief in Aliquippa. The boy says he found the loaded .22-caliber handgun on a bed and stuffed it in his backpack because he knew his brother wouldn't look there. When he brought it to school, another student found about it and told a teacher.

“He’s a very sweet kid," a family friend tells WPXI of Pittsburgh. "He wasn’t taking the gun to school to hurt anyone." It sounds as if police and school officials believe the boy, and police are still considering whether to file charges against the child's mother or her boyfriend. The gun isn't registered to either of them. "I just can't stop thinking about a loaded gun lying on a bed with a 3- and 5-year-old in the home," writes Michele Zipp at the Stir. "I can't stop thinking that what this kid did was sincerely what he thought was the right thing." (The family of a gun-safety instructor accidentally killed by a 9-year-old girl at a shooting range say they feel sorry for the girl.)




Boy, 5, Brings Gun to School So Brother Won't Find It

BURGER KING DESERTING AMERICA

Burger King is the latest company announcing plans to renounce its US citizenship in order to dodge taxes. It plans to buy Tim Hortons and then pretend Tim Hortons bought them so they can claim to be Canadian. (Tim Hortons renounced its own US citizenship in 2009 and moved their headquarters from Ohio to Canada.)

The announcement is prompting calls like this petition you can sign by the Campaign for America’s Future that calls on Burger King’s CEO to keep the restaurant chain American or “I will dine elsewhere.”



Now Burger King is Renouncing Its US Citizenship – Let’s Eat Somewhere Else | Perspectives | BillMoyers.com

Inequality: Rebuilding the Middle Class Requires Reviving Strong Unions

Inequality: Rebuilding the Middle Class Requires Reviving Strong Unions

SUCKING UP TO THE COCK (s) BROTHERS

Caught on Tape: What Mitch McConnell Complained About to a Roomful of Billionaires (Exclusive)


Last week, in an interview with Politico, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) outlined his plan to shut down President Obama’s legislative agenda by placing riders on appropriations bills. Should Republicans take control of the Senate in the 2014 elections, McConnell intends to pass spending bills that “have a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy.”

What McConnell didn’t tell Politico was that two months ago, he made the same promise to asecret strategy conference of conservative millionaire and billionaire donors hosted by the Koch brothers. The Nation and The Undercurrent obtained an audio recording of McConnell’s remarks to the gathering, called “American Courage: Our Commitment to a Free Society.” In the question-and-answer period following his June 15 session titled “Free Speech: Defending First Amendment Rights,” McConnell says:

“So in the House and Senate, we own the budget. So what does that mean? That means that we can pass the spending bill. And I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what’s called placing riders in the bill. No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We’re going to go after them on healthcare, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board [inaudible]. All across the federal government, we’re going to go after it.”

DESTROYING OUR CHILDREN WITH GUNS

What possible reason would any parent have to train their 9 year old daughter to use an Uzi? The answer is none; unless some place in their obviously distorted minds they intend to raise serial killer.



If so, this family is off to a good start when their 9 year old daughter used an Uzi to gun down her trainer. The parents of this 9 year old girl and others who suffer from the same distorted thinking, are calling it an accident.



In reality this was no accident. This 9 year old girl was intentionally handed a loaded Uzi and instructed to;


"All right, full auto," the firing-range instructor tells a 9-year-old girl. She braces the Uzi submachine gun and opens fire at a black-silhouette target. But the recoil wrenches the fully automatic weapon upward, and the instructor is shot in the head and killed.

Granted, this 9 year girl old had no intention to kill anyone nor was she the least bit aware that the weapon she was holding was a lethal killing machine and illegal on the streets. She was probably told that this was just a "fun" way to blast away and decimate inanimate objects while her parents captured those precious moments on video to air at future family gatherings. 
I can picture those gatherings now. The ooo's and ows' watching this 9 year old girl pump a magazine of bullets into objects with the sole intent of blowing them into pieces. No Barbies for this kid.



Thanks to her parents and those people who call themselves "gun enthusiasts" this young girl will live out the rest of her life reliving the horror of taking a human beings life while her parents caught it all on video.


A video released by investigators shows the 9-year-old, whose identity hasn't been released, holding the stubby weapon in both hands. Vacca, standing to her left, tells her to turn her left leg forward.

"All right, go ahead and give me one shot," he tells the girl, whose back is to the camera during the entire 27-second video. He then cheers when she fires one round at the target.

"All right, full auto," Vacca says. The video, which does not show the actual incident, ends with a series of shots being heard.

Arizona has long had a strong pro-gun culture, including weapon ranges that promote events for children and families. Some of these ranges offer people the thrill of firing weapons such as the Uzi that are generally illegal for members of the public to own.

The Scottsdale Gun Club in recent years has allowed children and families to pose with Santa Claus while holding machine guns and other weapons from the club. Children as young as 10 are allowed to hunt big game such as elk and deer in Arizona, provided they have completed a hunter safety course.

Not exactly a classroom show and tell on "what I did this summer."





As for those who perpetrate this horrific and sick form of entertainment, they will continue profiting from these misguided and gullible people who wantonly subject their children to these dangers to entertain themselves.



The saddest part of this is not the death of the instructor but the taking of a 9 year old's  childhood and destroying it for life.







Instructor's death at shooting range stirs debate over children and automatic weapons

WHO YOU CALLING ENTITLED?

Americans constantly hear about the threat of "entitlements," which in the case of Social Security and Medicare are more properly defined as "earned benefits." The real threat is the array of entitlements demanded by the very rich.

Annual Per Capita Numbers

The following are averages, which are skewed in the case of tax breaks and investment income, as a result of the excessive takings of the .1% and the .01%. Details of the calculations can be foundhere.

$8,600 for each of the Safety Net recipients

$14,600 for each of the Social Security recipients

$27,333 for each of the Pension recipients

$54,740 for each of the Teachers

$200,000 for each of the Tax Break recipients among the richest 1%

$500,000 for each of the Investment Income recipients among the richest 1%

The super-rich feel they deserve all the tax breaks and the accumulation of wealth from the productivity of others.

This is the true threat of entitlement.

Some Numbers for the ‘Entitlement’ Bashers

THE FREELOADING 1% - A CANCER ON THE ECONOMY

THE FREELOADING 1% - A CANCER ON THE ECONOMY

The 1 percent is literally rich beyond measure, depriving nations of billions in tax revenue and obscuring shifts in global inequality.

Research conducted separately by European Central Bank economist Philip Vermeulen and London School of Economics’ Gabriel Zucman show the wealth of the super-affluent -- hidden by tax shelters and nonresponse to questionnaires -- is undercounted. Correcting for similar lapses in income data almost erases progress made from 1988 to 2008 in narrowing the gap between the world’s rich and poor, World Bank research found.

The richest of America’s rich -- the top 0.1 percent with at least $20 million in net wealth -- held 23.5 percent of all U.S. wealth in 2012 after adding in estimates of how much was hidden in offshore tax havens, said Zucman, a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley. That compares with his previous estimate of 21.5 percent.

The 1% May Be Richer Than You Think, Research Shows

TANKS AND TEAR GAS ON US STREETS; AGAIN!

Chicago 1968, Kent State 1970, Watts 1965, Birmingham 1963, Ferguson 2014

Decades have passed since people were angry enough to say "enough" to the status quo. The difference today is that people are now faced with the reality that there is very little tolerance for protest and those that do will now be confronted with a "militarized" police response ( see: 11 Shocking Facts About America's Militarized Police Forces) which is now the "norm" in responding to social unrest.

On Wednesday, police used helicopters, armored vehicles and the threat of arrests to try to control an area that's been torn by racial tension and outrage over the shooting of Brown this past weekend.

Several high-profile arrests were made Wednesday, the fourth night of clashes since looting and other violence broke out Sunday. Among those taken into custody were St. Louis AldermanAntonio French, as well as reporters from The Washington Post and Huffington Post.

The journalists were seized after they were told to leave a fast-food restaurant; they were also asked for their IDs and told to stop taking photos. On Wednesday, police in Ferguson asked protesters to not hold demonstrations after dark.

"This was during daylight. This was not out on the street with hundreds or dozens of people," Wesley Lowery of the Post said on today's Morning Edition. "This was in a McDonald's, with five people, and maybe six officers."

In his first-person account for the Post, Lowery writes that he and The Huffington Post's Ryan J. Reilly were rounded up as they worked (the Wi-Fi and power outlets at McDonald's have made it popular with journalists in Ferguson).

Lowery says the officers wouldn't identify themselves. He was taken into custody after he asked to adjust his backpack — "and they threw me up against the soda machine, put plastic restraints on the backs of my hands, told me I was resisting arrest."

The two journalists, who had tweeted photos of the confrontation, were quickly released after media contacted the Ferguson police chief seeking comment.

After his release, Lowery tweeted, "I'm emotional, but need to note: Ryan and I are fine. Have seen people in Ferguson hurt by gas/rubber bullets. This wasn't that."

Videos from Ferguson's streets Wednesday night show clouds of tear gas rolling through streets lit with klieg lights and helicopter spotlights, after multiple rounds of gas canisters were fired.

In video posted by local TV news KSDK, police fired a round of tear gas that landed at the feet of a reporting crew from Al Jazeera, which had been taping a report. After the crew ran to escape the fumes, a SWAT vehicle drove to where they had set up, and officers in gas masks dismantled the crew's equipment as another officer swept the nearby area with his rifle.

The military-style equipment and riot gear being used by police in Ferguson has attracted national attention — and the ire of many residents.

Mo. Highway Patrol Takes Over Security In Ferguson, Governor Says

THE 3 "I's" :HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?

The 3 I's = INCOMPETENT-IRRESPONSIBLE-IGNORANT



These people would all have been "pink slipped" and sent packing in the private sector. What was at one time an honorable profession has degenerated into a breeding ground for cronyism and gerrymandering that is made up of a group of self-serving clowns that pander to the highest bidder with little regard for the country or it's citizens.

Congressional Job Approval Stays Near Historical Low

This month, Gallup followed up its standard congressional job approval question by asking Americans whether they hold that opinion strongly or only moderately. A majority, 55%, say they strongly disapprove of Congress, while 2% strongly approve.

Gallup previously asked about strength of Congress approval twice in 1994 and once in 1998. In October 1994, just before Republicans took control of Congress after 40 years as the minority party in the House of Representatives, 42% strongly disapproved of Congress.

Ebola: Questions About Death Panels

There's a drug out there that could be the cure for Ebola. Now that the public has been made aware of it questions are being raised as to why it was not used until now, and only to treat a select few individuals.



Could this be an example of how those dreaded "death panels" work?



Ebola: Questions, Answers About Unproven Drug

ADVERTISING DIARRHEA

It's beginning to feel like "We interrupt this commercial to bring you the show.

Published on February 21, 2013 by Stuart Fischoff, Ph.D. in The Media Zone

As futurist and author Aldous Huxley prophesied, we are becoming a people enslaved, not by what we fear but by what we love – this cornucopia of media conveniences digital gadgets and appliances. I am what I buy.

The vaunted supremacy of mobile media notwithstanding, the TV is still the gadget of choice in our home media centers. The U.S has by far the highest number of TV ad minutes per hour in the industrialized world, two-to three times the minutes allowed in European countries, our cultural cousins.

Today, American viewers will endure approximately three hours of advertisements in a 10 hour viewing period, twice what they would have seen in the 1960s.



The Average American is Exposed to More Than 1 Hour of TV Ads Every Day

A PATRIOTIC BUSINESS MODEL

This is message to all those "carnivorous" profit grubbing nay sayers out there who claim that business that don't put profits first can not survive in a free market capitalistic economy.

Demoulas' fast-growing Market Basket chain is something of an enigma: It posts higher margins than its competitors, but by many accounts pays its employees better, sets its prices lower and treats its vendors like cousins.

"We're in the people business first and the food business second."

At this very well-regarded family company, employees are picketing to protest the board’s firing of CEO Arthur T. Demoulas. Shelves are largely bare, and suppliers are being hurt by the slowdown. Many shoppers are not crossing the picket lines. The company’s newly appointed co-CEOs are trying to replace striking employees; some 25,000 jobs are at stake, but employees are holding the line. Politicians and government officials are weighing in.

This high-stakes, riveting story obviously teaches us a lot about the vulnerabilities of family companies — but it’s also a good reminder of their strengths. It is important to keep in mind that family business, a largely silent sector of market capitalism, is also the biggest sector, accounting for two-thirds of all businesses in the world, and about half of the largest companies in the United States. Studies done in a number of countries indicate that both public and private family companies perform, on average, significantly better than non-family businesses. They are stronger financially, have higher stakeholder loyalty, live longer, and are more trusted by the public. These company strengths have a lot to do with their family ownership and family leadership. And this is also true at Market Basket.

The now-former family leader of Market Basket, Arthur T. Demoulas, built an impressive and extremely loyal employee group. What company wouldn’t love to have frontline employees striking to support their CEO? The same goes for the cult-like loyalty of Market Basket customers.

Market Basket list: 11 management tips from 'Artie T.' - Boston Business Journal

Here, in Demoulas' own words, are 11 business principles that Market Basket runs on.

1. Everybody carry a notebook.

Dad taught us, God rest his soul, my dad Mike Demoulas, you know, he carried a notebook and a pad of paper and a pencil, and you walk around the store — just what we're going to do. We're going to talk to customers, talk to our great associates here and make a note of things that happen and you follow up on it.

2. Stay close to the customer.

You get away from being close to the customer, you've got a problem. You don't understand what they want. You're sitting some place in an office, not really knowing what's going on on the playing field and what is the true sense of that customer. And you lose touch. You lose touch with the comments, the input, the real touchy-feely of the company. You can never get close enough to the customer in any business.

3. Love your vendor

All the vendors, they're experts in their own area, whether they're selling bags of lettuces or spices. We're all ears on how to learn and what the latest trends and the latest knowledge in these various things. ... The extra monies, the deal monies from vendors that we work out is passed on through the system, all for the cost of goods sold, so we can lower the price for the customer.

4. Massage the business

You get a great first-hand sense of what people want, and you keep massaging your business, product by product and service by service. It's a never-ending, ongoing thing.

5. Promote from within

We do all of our promoting from within. We start out bagging groceries and shagging carriages and cutting boxes in the back room and doing the things you do in a supermarket — 99 percent of our people come from within the ranks.

6. Mind the store

Growth isn't our biggest hunt. Our biggest hunt is maintaining what we have. We talk about it in meetings all the time. The most important thing is taking care of the customers that have been loyal to you over the years.

7. Think small

Putting a building up is easy — the difficult thing is bringing the Market Basket culture. ... We don't want to open a nice big store like we do and not have the same feeling that you have in the store here. And that feeling that we always want to present is being your local grocer. ... We try to create a mentality that hey, you run the place like it's a one-store operation.

8. Let people get in the way

A lot of people over the years have stocked their stores overnight, like on night crews. We prefer to stock during the day. Now, a little bit inconvenient having a palette in the aisle? It is. But you know we'd rather have a human being, customers saying, can you reach that for me? And what about this? ... We're in the people business first and the food business second.

9. You get two identities

As a retailer you have to have a couple of identities that you're very potent with. You takeWhole Foods. You think Whole Foods, you're natural foods and pristine merchandise. ... You've got to stand for something. What Market Basket stands for is best people, best price, without sacrificing the quality, the variety and the shopping experience at large.

10. No gouging

We have a pricing policy that is one pricing policy in all 71 stores - whether you're in Bourne, whether you're in Chelsea. ... Now there's competitors – won't mention any names – that you can buy this product right here (picks up a sleeve of plastic cups) and this product is $1.29 here, you can go down to the Cape, one of their Cape stores, you're going to your summer home or whatever, and they're selling this for $2.29. Hey, I mean, how fair is that?

11. Think about real estate

We have a pretty good sense of what feels right. Our track record is pretty much 100 percent when it comes to that. My dad had a good eye for a spot. It's in part the strength of the formula, and part the location, but you look for spots that has good access and the right parking and the right reach — of course, being close to people and highways is very good. We probably go about it in the least sophisticated way as you would think. It's nothing more than driving to the lot on different days and different hours of the day, seeing the traffic and sizing things up with your senses.

UN-AMERICAN AMERICAN CORPORATIONS

What happened to economic patriotism?



There are a large number of American corporations (or should I call them persons?) who believe that profits come before country. To hell with the country they say and their shareholders (also many of which are Americans) are cheering them on.



The idea that and American company, headquartered and doing business in America, would go out of it's way to dodge paying taxes in support of this country is despicable on it's face and treasonous at its core. And the politicians that condone this kind of psuedo-criminal activity need to be thrown out of the elected offices they hold for violating the oath they took to protect and defend this country.

Positively un-American tax dodges

Bigtime companies are moving their “headquarters” overseas to dodge billions in taxes … that means the rest of us pay their share.

American Christians Practice Brotherly Hate

The Bible teaches to love your enemies;

Mark 12:31English Standard Version (ESV)
31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

If that is one of the conditions of salvation American Christians have a chance in Hell into getting into Heaven. 

One look at the numbers that Gallup put out it's obvious who Americans relate to and it isn't the victim(s).

Israelis claim that Palestinians use Palestinians as human shields which they then justify for using them as human targets, and, which a majority of Christian Americans polled don't see as a problem.

Israelis seem to suffer from long term memory since they are oblivious to the reality that they treat Palestinians much the same way the Nazis treated them. Slaughtering thousands of men, women and children using  absolutely absurd logic to justify their reasons. Unless you are severely mentally challenged it is obvious that Hamas is a negligible threat; rockets and all ,when up against the Israeli war machine; much like a David and Goliath scenario and you can guess who David is.

Religion Plays Large Role in Americans' Support for Israelis

Religious Americans are significantly more likely than less religious Americans to be sympathetic to the Israelis in the Middle East situation. Over the past 14 years, on average, 66% of Americans who attend church weekly or almost every week are sympathetic to the Israelis, compared with 13% who are sympathetic to the Palestinians. Sympathy for Israel drops to 46% among those who never attend church, still twice as many as the 23% who are sympathetic to the Palestinians.